Mapping systems that provide users direction information and location of various registered locales are commonly utilized. Map making has largely been carried out by visitors to a particular place. The knowledge of places acquired by these visitors was then aggregated and assimilated into useful models that answered the question ‘what's it like there?’ In the Age of Discovery, the cartographic knowledge gained was often not shared. In this closed system, maps were viewed as a competitive advantage over other nation states.
The person with the best available knowledge of a particular area was in a superior position when it came to conquest, settlement, or trade. As the world was discovered, knowledge of its geography gradually spread to more and more people and maps improved. As technology advanced, so did the accuracy of mapmaking until arriving at what today is generally agreed upon as maps of the world.
As incredibly detailed and broadly available as they have become, the creation of maps remains an inherently closed system. Third party cartographers face the insurmountable challenge of keeping their maps accurate and up to date since the world is ever changing and no sooner is a map published than it is obsolete. Suburban map makers especially can never hope to visit a place often enough to keep things up to date let alone increase the resolution of today's maps. Local knowledge of a place is always better than what a visitor can hope to capture.
Today sources of information are isolated and a user, desiring a diverse amount of information generally has to access each isolated pocket of information. For example, to view weather data a user might access weather.com. Other examples of such pockets of information include real estate listings found on redfin.com, traffic on wa.gov, and personal photographs on ofoto.com. However, if a user interested in purchasing a house is concerned about the traffic and weather patterns in the area, the user has to access each isolated repository of information separately. This is not only time-consuming but can be frustrating especially if a user is not familiar with the wealth of information available and/or how to access such information.
Another development related to the wealth of information available is Internet advertising or “E-commerce.” E-commerce is a way of carrying out business transactions over the Internet and is commonly used by consumers for ease of ordering. Common forms of Internet advertising are banner ads and pop-up ads. Banner ads are advertisements placed on a web page by a third party, who can provide free services or payment in return for the ability to place the ads on the web page. Some web pages are supported by banner ads. A pop-up ad is an advertisement that appears automatically in a separate window when a particular web page is viewed. However, banner ads and pop-up ads offer no effective means for an advertiser to tailor advertisements based on a user location and/or a user preference.